'Revolution' wraps up filming amid uncertainty about future

Thursday

Apr 4, 2013 at 8:19 PM

No word has come from NBC about whether the Wilmington-shot drama will return for a second season.

By Cassie FossCassie.Foss@StarNewsOnline.com

As the Wilmington-shot post-apocalyptic drama "Revolution" wraps this week, no word has come from NBC on whether the series will return for a second season.The show, which arrived in Southeastern North Carolina in July 2012, will film the last of its final first season episode on Monday amid uncertainty about its future."I know they're coming to a close, but beyond that, I haven't heard anything about the show staying here," Wilmington Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin said this week. "We haven't even heard about whether they'll get picked up for a second season – sometimes local people working on the show don't even know."At a shoot at a vacant building near Bijou Park on Front Street on Thursday, some of the show's crew members were in limbo."The truth is, we really don't know what's going to happen," said David Hartley, the show's production manager and a former "One Tree Hill" producer. "I can say it's been a challenging show to work on, but it's been rewarding."One such cinematic test is the ongoing search for suitable locations for the series, which explores society after the loss of electricity and all forms of technology."Since the story is always moving, the show has required spectacular new locations each week," N.C. Film Office Director Aaron Syrett said. "Like every new season of a series, we have to wait for the scripts to see where the story goes."Although producers have said Wilmington boasts a good deal of overgrown ruins and vacant industrial sites ideal for the road-adventure show, some crew members have speculated about whether the series has tapped out the region's blighted buildings."Part of the good thing for us is we don't have a lot of urban blight in town," said Wilmington Regional Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin. "So now, they're going to some of the same places over and over again. It's a good thing that the town doesn't have that many vacant buildings, but visually, they can only use a location so many times."As film crews travel farther from Wilmington, production costs increase."They went to Raleigh a few weeks ago to film because of a certain look they needed, but there was an extra cost associated with that because they had to travel, take 125 people there, and house them and feed them. Everything you do creatively has a price tag."Other factors that helped attract the series to the area include crew availability and North Carolina's film incentive film program, which allows companies to recoup 25 percent of their qualifying expenses. About 300 skilled crew members work on the production, Syrett said.Meanwhile, ratings dipped to a series low for this past week's episode, the second so far after a four-month mid-season hiatus. Still, the show remains NBC's most popular scripted series among young viewers, which makes a second season likely.Monday's upcoming episode, which promises answers on what caused the blackout, should satisfy fans and may provide incentives for new viewers to tune in.The stakes are high for local crew members waiting for NBC and Warner Bros., which produces the show, to decide their fate."We can help point them in the right direction when it comes to questions they have and we're always a part of the conversation. But there's a combination of creative and financial elements they have to consider and they have to balance those things," Griffin said. "For us, it usually comes down to things that are totally out of our control."